Apparently, answering questions is the hardest part of an actor’s job. Or at least Bruce Willis said so, and we think quite seriously. We didn’t even notice a hint of that signature Willis smirk (and, believe us, we really wanted to see the smirk).

Willis was on the hot seat this afternoon at the press conference for Looper,Rian Johnson’s sci-fi-western-future-noir flick that’s opening the 2012 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival. Sitting alongside co-star Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the man who’ll forever be synonymous with New York cop John McClane answered a lot of questions: some about his new movie, more about time travelling (be it to the past or the future—or back through his own film career). Of course, given Looper’s heady premise, the queries were entirely appropriate. Willis plays a time-travelling hitman who launches himself back to the past to thwart the ascendency of a super-powered mob boss, only to have his younger self, played byGordon-Levitt, interfere. To prepare for the role, Gordon-Levitt copied the audio tracks of Willis’ old movies onto his iPod, and listened to them repeatedly. “He was a very good Bruce Willis,” Willis joked. But again, nary a smirk to be seen.